The Cigar Box
by CoraRochester
Summary: Where my prompts for Bethyl Week July 2014 will be collected. Ratings/warnings/themes will range with each story, and will therefore be posted at the beginning of each. All stories will deal with the romantic relationship between resident redneck heartthrob, Daryl Dixon, and strong, sensitive heroine, Beth Greene.
1. Chapter 1

_**The Cigar**** Box**_ by Cora Rochester

**Bethyl Week Prompt: **Secret

**Rating: **M for explicit sexual activity, physical abuse, and strong language

**Word Count: **3,274

**Notes: **Takes place at an indeterminate time, imagined to be post-Terminus, but is simply post-Beth-being-taken and not specifically canon-compliant. See further notes at end.

...

When he was a kid, he'd found this old cigar box buried deep in a pile of his mom's old junk, under yellowing Harlequins and pictures in envelopes and old clothes. After she'd died, his dad had just crammed all of her crap into the closet at the very end of the hall, behind ratty blankets and musty smelling towels. Never spoke about it. Never nothing more than just being there, something Daryl would peer at through the cracked closet door when the house was empty and quiet, wondering if this was where his mom's ghost stayed.

Eventually, he got a little older and a little braver. He started digging through the piles of stuff a little at a time. And after a while, the box caught his eye, all colorful and old looking. He couldn't remember seeing it before, but imagined there must be something special inside. Treasure, of some sort. He didn't like to think too hard on the specifics, but he felt, in his guts, that it was going to be something that changed his life. Something crazy. So he drew out the suspense a little bit. Waited weeks to finally pull the box out of the closet.

Of course, when he opened it up, it turned out to be empty. No hidden panels, either. Just a regular old cigar box, full of nothing but a tiny bit of dust in the corners. So he'd shoved it back into the closet and tried to forget it was even there. Went back to just peeking in the closet, careful not to let the door squeak.

It was a couple of months after he'd opened the box when he finally pulled it back out again. His back was bleeding something awful, deeply burning and shredded to shit where the belt buckle had ripped up strips of skin. The sound of his father's dead-drunk snores were filling up the house and tears were blurring up his eyes, and he'd slowly inched his way down the hallway, blindly feeling along the wall for support. He wasn't really thinking. Just moving almost as slow as death, tiptoeing and shaking, tears and snot falling down his face and staining his hand-me-down shirt from Merle. And when he finally reached the closet at the end of the hall, he just let the door swing silently open. Reached behind the balled up mess of old rags, and pulled down the box. Shuffled his way into the bedroom he'd shared with Merle until Merle had gone to juvie. Laid his bare belly on his bare mattress, and set the box on top of the pillow in front of him, nose almost touching the thin cardboard. Propped it open with a shaky hand, then closed it. Did that a couple of times. Breathed in dust and smoke and the faintest whiff of tobacco, stifling any hiccups in his chest from crying. Just laid there until he fell asleep, one hand loosely hanging onto the corner of the box. And it was still there when he woke up, caught between numb thumb and fingers.

And over the next few years, he started filling it up with little things. A feather from the first big turkey he'd killed by himself, using a crossbow he'd borrowed from his uncle. An old Indian arrowhead he'd found in the riverbed one summer when it had dried up to nothing more than a trickle. A letter from Merle, almost illegible but it had come around the time of his thirteenth birthday, even though it made no mention of it. An old fountain pen, crusty with dried ink and the metal bits a little rusted, that the crazy old lady from around the corner had given him, calling him by someone else's name. A picture of him as a baby, Merle's chubby arms wrapped around his chest and his feet dangling precariously.

Daryl didn't really have rules for what went in the box. Nothing he thought about and decided. If something just sort of struck him, he'd pull the box out from under his bed and set it in there with the rest of the stuff. Some of it he got rid of over the years. Some bits of quartz he'd toss if he couldn't even remember why he'd picked it up in the first place. He kept his prom ticket in there for weeks, trying to figure out if he had the guts to ask the pretty girl in homeroom to go with him, thinking that maybe her shy smiles and shiny brown hair might mean something. He didn't end up asking anyone, and the night of prom, he got shitfaced and burned the stupid bit of paper before drunkenly taking off down the trail to the crick behind his house, where he spent the night staring up at the spinning sky instead of dancing. But some of the stuff stayed no matter what. The picture of his mother he'd torn from her freshman yearbook, mostly because she looked so nice and pretty in the picture, so unlike the miserable woman he'd grown up seeing. A well-worn map of the mountains he'd grown up living in, stained with rain and dirty hands and creased so bad the paper was flaking away in some places. Still needed the map, even if, somewhere along the line, he'd stopped needing to use it.

He kept the box until the end, when people had started turning and he and Merle had lit out, trying to make it to Atlanta. It'd disappeared somewhere in the shuffle of trying grab his bow and bolts and guns he'd only ever used for hunting animals. Funny how easy it became to forget that he was shooting at something that had once been human. To forget that there had ever been a world before all this.

Funny how, with all the things he forgot, he always remembered that goddamn box.

…

Beth's fingers traced over his bare back, her cool hands soothing in the humid air of the room. She didn't say anything, just traced over and around his scars, over the smooth pink streaks and the gnarled mass of scar tissue where the metal belt buckle had repeatedly ripped into the same patch of skin. She always touched him so lightly, like wind moving over his skin. Soothing. Never asked about the scars and where they came from. He reckoned she knew, and that was enough for him. Letting her touch them made it more real than spelling it out for her ever could.

"I lost your journal," he mumbled into his elbow. "That night." Beth's fingers kept tracing, following one long scar down to the middle of his back, following the bumps of his spine to his belt. He shifted his head just slightly, speaking into the shallow, narrow space of the random room he was staying in for the night. Just passing through. "Know it was important to you t'write shit down."

Beth's soft lips brushed across one shoulder, a dirty shoulder tanned and scarred with wounds and age. Her hair fell along his back, brushing his neck and making him shiver. Daryl just never got used to her touching him the ways she did. "It's alright," she whispered. "It's nice, being able to tell you. It's like being able to write it down, but safer. I know you hold onto it. Like…" Beth trailed off, her fingers digging into the skin by his hip for a quick moment. "Like when I told you about what happened when... when I was _gone_. I know you hold onto it for me. Help me carry it around and put it away for me when I need it." Her fingertips traced the outline of the starburst-shaped bolt scar on his side. "Guess I need you to remind me sometimes," she said with a sad laugh, and he remembered that dark night all those months ago. Fuzzy drunk and pouring his eyes and heart out in front of Beth. Screaming his head off at her and then letting her hold him together when all he wanted to do was fall into the ground. Her words, telling him he had to remind himself that he was a good man. _I'll be gone someday_, she'd said. And she had been right.

"Can't trust me with that," he said to the dusty sheets.

"I want to, though," she said. "Sometimes I think you're the only thing holding me together when they're trying to tear me apart."

He exhaled one long breath, feeling her hands sift through the too long hair falling over his back. "You have to go inside." Rolling onto his side, he face Beth, settling his hand onto her hip and squeezing hard. "Inside your head, where everythin's turned off."

Beth didn't answer, just scooted closer until her face was buried in his neck and he could feel her shaking. She tugged at him, pulling him over her like a blanket. Daryl relented, propping himself up on one elbow and settling in between her hips. The polo was soft against his bare torso, a little grimy and a dirty, just like his shirts always were, too.

His hands found her hair, brushing through tangles and winding and unwinding a thick lock of hair around a finger, a little dusty and not so smooth as it'd been at the prison but still so fucking nice. "Used to think about this box I had. Used to put all sorts of shit in it. Had a picture of my mom in there, from when she was fourteen or fifteen, right before Merle. Some fool's gold Merle told me was real an' I believed him for a while. Big ol' bolt from the train tracks by my house, where I used to go fishin' for dinner." He turned his head, pressing his lip to her temple. "Just a dumb fucking cigar box that hadn't gotten burnt to shit after mom burnt the house down with her in it, drunk an' smoking in bed. Fucking box filled up with junk." He was silent for a moment, picking at a feather poking through the dirt and sweat-stained pillowcase. "Sometimes that's all you need to get away from being beat half t'death."

"What do you think of now?" she asked, running a hand down his side and making him shudder. "Said used to."

"The box," he mumbled into her hair. "Just different shit inside of it, now."

Beth's lips moved against his collarbone as she replied. "Like what?"

"You," he answered into her hair. Honesty felt easier when he couldn't see her eyes moving over him. "This."

He kissed her softly at first. Gentle. Brushed the hair from her cheeks and cradled her skull with steady hands. Ran his tongue over her lips, lightly, until she parted her lips with a sigh. Let his thumb brush the corner of her mouth while he sucked on her full lower lip.

But no matter how hard he tried to keep things sweet for her, he always let himself go. He kissed her like he was fucking starving, drowning, burning alive. Stroked her tongue with his own and wrapped her hair around his hand. Tugged her head back and licked his way down her neck greedily and bit into her pulse point until she gasped out a strangled "_Please_." He only growled a response against the base of her throat, hands already diving beneath her shirt. Dragged his callused hands up her silk-smooth ribs while his tongue dipped down the open neck of her polo, tasting bare, sweaty skin. She panted, and all of it went straight to his dick, the smell and taste and feel of her making him so hard it hurt. His hands kept moving upwards until they met the fabric of her bra, fingers curling under the band, his nails scraping over her skin lightly as he yanked at her clothes. He tugged her shirt and bra over her head in one rough and quick motion, throwing it over the side of the bed without looking away from her face. Her blue eyes were dilated as fuck, and she stared up at him, dazed, as he hovered over her.

"You look so fuckin' good," he said. Beth's head fell back when he palmed one of her breasts, squeezing, as his tongue slid down the other, from collarbone to hardened nipple. He toyed with her, using lips and tongue, sucking and licking as she arched against him. He felt her hands on his hair, felt her shaking and twisting beneath him with every stroke of his tongue. But it wasn't until his teeth grazed her nipple that he heard her cry out, a sharp sound, quiet enough, but it had him pulling back, kneeling between her legs. His hands followed a rough trail from her tits to her hips, immediately finding the button of her jeans and slipping it free before tugging down the zipper.

Before tugging down her jeans, he leaned back just a little, swiftly undoing his belt as he watched the rise and fall of her chest, light glinting over suntanned skin and freckles. Just as he was pulling on his zipper, Beth was sitting up, arm already twining around his neck while one small hand snaked under his waistband and over bare skin, squeezing his dick before pumping. He held onto her hips, fingertips digging into the base of her spine and closing his eyes and burying his face in that mass of blonde hair. It was like she'd always known just how to touch him and how fast, or when to swipe her thumb over the head of his dick. It always felt too good.

It wasn't long before he was pulling her hands away from him, up and over her head as he slammed her back into the bed. "Need to feel you," he ground out against the slick skin of her neck, listening for her answering whimper before continuing. He slid further down the bed, pausing only to bite the indent of her waist, right above the flare of her hip. Beth lifted up her hips as he pulled down her jeans and underwear, and he let those fall to the ground before dropping his own.

Like always, her eyes traveled over him, eating up the sight of him. He fell back on top of her, balancing on his forearm while reaching between her legs. She was wet, slick, and he brushed his fingers over her clit before slowly pushing two fingers deep inside of her. Her neck arched, shoulders tensing, as he pumped in and out of her sweet, tight body in measured strokes. "You gotta tell me you want this," he said, his voice sounding low and gravelly even to his own ears. He said it every time.

"You know I do," Beth whispered, blue eyes staring at him, dark with desire but still so fucking easy to read. Same answer as the first time. She always meant it.

His breath came heavy as he slid his fingers out of her, wrapping his wet hand around his dick and teasing her folds before pressing deeper. Beth's legs wrapped around his waist, her mouth seeking his as he slid inside of her with one deep thrust, her tight, wet heat rippling around him. She whimpered into the kiss when he nudged forward just a little further, deep as he could go. He could feel her tighten around his dick, a fluttering that had him curling his hands into fists, biting back the urge to fuck her until he blacked out. He thrust into her, keeping up a steady, hard rhythm, pulling almost all the way out before pushing back in as far as he could go.

Her small, warm hands moved restlessly over his back, her hips moving in time with his thrusts, milking him and drawing every motion out. It wasn't long before she started pushing up against him harder, digging her nails into his back and nipping at his lip. "Faster," she whispered against his mouth. "Please."

He gave in, dropping his head onto her shoulder and biting as his hand wrapped around her throat. Just a gentle pressure and his thumb rubbing along the rapid beat of her pulse. He gave her a few more slow, shallow thrusts, sliding his hand down her body, lightly pinching her nipple, gripping her waist. And then he grabbed ahold of her round ass, squeezing hard as he began to pound into her. Deep strokes, deep enough that she tightened her legs around him to let him sink further into her with each hard thrust. She was getting so wet he could feel it on his skin, hear the slap of damp skin on skin. So wet he could smell her, a rich scent that only made him fuck her harder.

"You gonna come for me?" he said, low and quiet. He could feel her shiver against him, and he sped up. "You gonna come on me?" Soft sounds started falling from her lips, and her nails bit into skin hard enough to draw blood. Holding onto her ass, he ground her against him feverishly. He felt her begin to shudder. "Get me wet," he said, nipping at her neck. "Can't come until you do."

He kept on, small thrusts that kept him deep inside of her, feeling her get tighter and tighter around him. "That's it," he mumbled as she started to convulse around him. Just a few more thrusts as she shuddered around him, and he was coming, too. Couldn't hold back a groan at the throbbing pleasure that spread over him as he filled her with his come. He stayed buried deep inside for a few long moments, his body almost numb as he listened to their panting filling up the air, hotter and more humid than before.

Beth curled up next to him when he finally rolled off of her, one hand brushing over his sticky-sweaty chest. She didn't say anything for a long time, just moved her hand over sweaty skin and the trail of hair along his chest.

"Sometimes I think I'm going to wake up and you won't be here," she finally said. "That I've been dreaming this and I'll wake up and this will have just been inside my mind. Something I made up to pretend you were with me again. That I'm too far inside myself to even know what's real anymore."

Daryl closed his eyes at the wave of burning that spread through his body like fire. He blindly sought the comfort of her smell, nose brushing against her hair. He inhaled, trying to comfort the thoughts buzzing though his mind. "Sometimes inside's all we've got, Beth."

She sighed, her hand resting over his heart. He captured her hand with his and squeezed. "Go to sleep. I'm right here. I ain't leaving you, girl. I'll always be looking for you."

…

When he woke up, bright sun streaming through cracks in the boarded up windows, he was alone in the bed. No sign of Beth. No print of her on the sheets, no trace of her scent lingering on his skin. No marks on his skin from her lips or teeth or nails. Just him in an empty, dirty room he'd ripped apart before collapsing into bed after another day of looking and not finding her. Just him and stale, humid air pressing in on him. Just him and his crossbow, propped up against the door.

Just him and his cigar box full of wishes, buried deep inside.

...

**A/N**: I hope it's not terrible. My god, am I nervous about posting smut. At any rate, in case anyone wasn't aware that I'm a complete and utter _Jane Eyre_ freak, I wanted to say that this was partly inspired by that novel; for instance, Jane's escape to the library/into books as a child, to hide from her abusive cousins, but mostly in reference to the supernatural occurrence towards the end of the book, where St. John is pressing his suit, and Jane hears Rochester's voice call out her name three times, a disembodied voice calling out over the moor. And she calls back that she is returning to him. It isn't until they are reunited that they realize they both experienced this strange happening, for Mr. Rochester had heard her reply. It's a lovely and strange happening that I love in the book, and happen to think fits nicely with Daryl's storyline, from the abuse he experienced as a child, to seeing Merle in season 2 (Chupacabra). At any rate, I can't imagine him _not_ being haunted by Beth. My hope for season 5 is, in fact, that we see that happen, if only briefly.

Time permitting (ha. ha.) I'd like to write a second part to _The Cigar Box_ where we realize there's an other half to this story- that Daryl visits Beth at night, too. But! I've got to wrap up the next chapter of Heavy, and try to do some other prompts for Bethyl week, so, we'll see how that goes!

As always, let me know what you think! :D


	2. Chapter 2

**The Red House** by Cora Rochester

**Rating: **T for language

**Word Count:** 2198

**Notes: **This is a non-zombie AU

...

The red house was a fucking dump, wood grain showing through faded wood siding and white paint cracking and peeling off the window frames in thick, leaded chips. It was one of those big old houses that had started falling apart in a shit neighborhood and been split up into a handful of apartments, rented out cheap, no questions asked. The front of the house faced onto the main road, a pulsating neon sign in the smeared up window, "TATTOO" spelled out in red block capitals. Cigarette butts and probably a couple of roaches littered the stress-fractured sidewalk, most densely ringed around a beat-up folding chair, nylon threads unraveling wildly in the seat. And the back of the house, where a spindly looking set up stairs led up to their second floor apartment, wasn't any better. A yellow patch of grass, littered with gravel, led out to the narrow alleyway where he'd parked his truck, his brother's bike haphazardly parked half on the lawn, half on the asphalt. Half hidden in the shadow of the wooden stairs, he could see a crooked looking doorway leading into yet another awkwardly sized apartment, judging by worn welcome mat and flower pots scattered along the cement pad outside the door.

"Home sweet home, baby brother!" Merle crowed, slapping Daryl on the back, hard, as he shoved past with a thirty rack under his arm. Whistling a tone deaf rendition of what appeared to be a Guns & Roses song, Merle stomped on up the stairs, wrestling a warm can of beer out of the box. Turning, Daryl looked back at his truck, what little shit they owned haphazardly piled up and needing to be hauled up that shaky looking set of stairs. He'd done this often enough to know Merle considered carrying that case of beers up the stairs his contribution to the moving process.

"Catch!"

Daryl barely had time to jerk around and duck before a can landed with a loud thud at his feet. "Gotta move fast, Darylina!" Merle laughed, a reedy, asthmatic sound. "Guess you're gonna hafta wait on that beer!" And then he disappeared into the dark apartment, slamming the door with a decisive rattle. Barely noon and Merle was already singlehandedly working on a buzz.

Biting back a blue streak, Daryl bent over and picked up the can, grateful it hadn't cracked open and sprayed everywhere. Normally he didn't give too much of a shit about what Merle got up to, but he was pissed about having to move into town in the first place. He'd been just fine living out from town a ways, right by the woods and no neighbors in sight. Looking down the alley, he could see dirty looking house after dirty looking house, beat up cars cluttering up both sides of the road. Everyone's yard was the same sickly yellow-brown, dried out in the early summer heat. Whole alley smelled a little funky, with everyone's garbage baking in the cans lined up along the curb.

Nah, this wasn't what he wanted at all. But Merle had friends living in town, and they were saying college kids, rich kids going to that private bullshit liberal arts college in town, were all for buying every kind of pill they could get their hands onto. So Merle had pulled up the stakes and dragged his circus all the way into town, giving up the cabin he and Daryl had been living in for going on a year in the hopes of making some money peddling pills to college douchebags. The only upside, if you could even call it that, was that Daryl was a little closer to the highway department job he'd been working at for nearly 6 months. Wasn't full time or anything, but he was happy to have a little bit of work and have some cash on hand for smokes and beer and maybe picking up a movie if he wanted to. But giving up the job and the cabin in one fell swoop would've really pissed him off. So, at least it was only losing one of the two this time around.

Instead up lifting up any of the hastily packed cardboard boxes from the truck bed, he just sort of poked around at them, trying to figure out where he'd tossed his Zippo. The thing had disappeared while he was packing, and he was awful sick of the Bic he'd picked up at the gas station. Had the fucking Zippo for more than ten years, shine worn away from his always thumbing it, all scratched up and a little dented from that one time Merle had thrown it out the window while Daryl was driving. No matter what happened to the goddamned thing, it always turned back up, still working, just a little more dinged up.

He finally found it at the bottom of a box of balled up underwear and wife beaters and mismatched thermal socks. Daryl had just lit up a cigarette when he heard a door opening up behind him. Merle, probably looking for something. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell his brother to fuck off when a soft, female voice with a delicate Georgian accent came from somewhere behind his right shoulder.

"Hey there."

Turning around, he was surprised to see a pretty looking girl, a girl with blond hair and a delicate, china doll face. She had on a grey tank top and jeans shorts with lace trimmed pockets poking out from under the fraying hem, and a whole jewelry store's worth of bracelets on her right wrist. She had a thin body, all soft white lines, and he found himself struggling to guess how old she was. Eighteen? Maybe twenty-one? There was something sweet about her porcelain doll face, about the friendly smile she wore on her pale pink lips that made him think she had to be young.

"Hey," he finally managed to mumble, looking at her baby blue eyes for just a second before dropping his gaze again.

"Are you the one that's just moving in?" she asked.

"Yeah," he answered. He took another drag, letting his eyes flicker briefly over the braid peeking out of her ponytail, and the orange toenail polish that clashed with her pink rubber flip flops. "Me'n my brother."

She stepped a little closer, her nice smile widening just a bit as she held out her hand. "I'm Beth," she said. "I live under you, back of the tattoo parlor."

Her hand was soft, but she had callouses on her fingers and her grip was surprisingly firm. "Daryl," he offered, meeting her eyes again. They looked, for all the world, like the fucking sky on a summer day, a shade of blue he'd never seen before in his life.

The upstairs door slammed open, and Daryl dropped her hand like it was burning.

"Daryl! You see my lava lamp out there? Gotta get this place lookin' good tonight if we're gonna be entertainin'." Merle stepped out onto the stairs, beer in one hand and cigarette in the other. He let out a long, appreciative whistle when his eyes settled on the girl, ambling down the stairs. "Why, howdy, sweet cheeks. See you just met the lesser Dixon brother. Why don' you com'on over here and say hello to Merle." Daryl felt his stomach curl up as he watched his brother's lips twitch as he looked the girl up and down.

Beth, like most women, didn't look terribly impressed with Merle. But she stuck her hand out all the same, which Merle took after jamming his cigarette back between his lips. "Hi," she said as she shook Merle's hand. "I'm Beth Greene. I was just telling your brother that I live underneath you folks."

"Well isn't that just the cherry on the pie," Merle said. "We got ourselves the prettiest neighbor in the whole state'a Georgia." His eyes flickered over to Daryl, who was carefully looking at a space somewhere above Beth's left shoulder. "Ain't we just the lucky ones, there, boy?"

Daryl knew Merle was needling him. His brother always was fucking with him when it came to girls, knowing Daryl was more like to clam up than try to put his hand on anybody's ass. Merle never could figure out when was a good time to keep his mouth shut. So he just shot a glare in Merle's direction, crushing his cigarette into the side of his truck and tossing it into the street.

"I don't know about that," Beth finally said, her smile wry. "Anyway, it was good to meet you. I have to get going to work, but I hope you all get settled in nicely!" She gave them a little wave, taking off towards the alley way. Daryl tried not to stare at the way her ass looked in those shorts. He had a feeling his brother didn't feel the same sort of neighborly respect.

Both the brothers watched as she pulled away in a beat up brown and tan Ford Ranger, windows down and hair blowing in the wind, folk music just barely louder than the rumble of the engine.

"Looks like jailbait if I ever seen it. But it ain't no crime to look, now is it?" Merle said, setting his beer on the side of Daryl's truck. He started dragged clothes and books and magazines and all sorts of shit out of boxes, tossing it all around the truck bed. After opening up damn near every box, Merle finally pulled his fucking lava lamp free, the cord catching on one of Daryl's shirts and dragging it to the ground. "Now the party can start," he said, gathering up the cord and his beer, heading back towards the stairs.

Daryl didn't answer, just looked at the wrecked boxes and the piles of shit strewn around his truck bed. A few hours' worth of moving and unpacking stretched out in front of him, and then what? Getting drunk with Merle? Living in the city meant not being able to just slip off into the woods, crossbow on his shoulder, and spend the night out away from everything. Slipping away to something right outside where you parked your ass at night was easy. He knew the roads he could take, how many miles and how long it'd take, before he could be right back in the woods. But knowing that didn't change shit. Those woods were a whole fucking world away, now. This, this shitty red house and the shitty tattoo parlor and that pretty little girl that was going to get real sick of him and his dipshit brother real soon, this was his world now. And that's all there was to it.

…

The first night they were there, it just noise spilling out of the upstairs apartment, loud and obnoxious and just like Merle. Sitting out at the bottom of the stairs, having a smoke and staring at the chain link fence in front of him, Daryl thought, not for the first time, about how Merle's voice is always the one he could hear over everything else. Always the loudest. Always had to be the brashest son of a bitch in any given room, even when they were kids and Daryl would tag along after his older brother like his life depended on it. There was comfort in all that larger than life bullshit. Unsteady as it really was, nights like this _felt_ steady. Like all that noise and the awful flush on the back of his neck would last forever. Merle would always be making noise, and Daryl would always be listening to it.

It wasn't too late, maybe eleven or so. This was nothing new for Daryl, and he knew the party was going to be stretching on until every last man and woman had passed out somewhere, snoring and farting and looking like every kind of fool known to man. Daryl knew he'd have to pick his way over sprawled out bodies at five in the morning, trying not to make too much noise on his way out the door to work.

After a few moments, he heard sound from behind him. Turning, he peered through the stairs, taking in the yard and the red siding, black looking except for where the streetlights hit it. The girl's apartment was all lit up now, yellowish light spilling through white curtains. It'd been dark in there when he'd come down the stairs, silent, like there wasn't even anybody in there. A fist formed in his gut, and he sucked down the last of his cigarette quickly, pinching down hard on the filter as he squinted at her wide-awake apartment.

Around the time he started to wonder if he should go on and apologize to her, knowing that he'd never get up the balls to actually go on and do it, a melody started spilling out from the apartment. Just muted guitar chords and a high, sweet voice singing words he couldn't quite make out. His cigarette long since spent, he stayed out for quite some time, just listening to songs he could barely hear.

...

Sorry, nothing much happens. I have another couple of thousand words written on this, but nothing that's ready for posting at the moment. Eventually, though, I'm going to finish it! (ha. ha. ha...)


End file.
